Saturday, January 04, 2014

A Few Days In And I'm In Search Of Some Time

We're a few days in to 2014 and I probably should let everyone know what we've been up to. I have been seeing the stirring of a battle on the horizon - a battle for my time. It's amazing how little perceived free time you really have once you retire. Six years after I quit my job I still haven't figured out where this faunt of free time resides. I suppose it all comes down to a series of choices.

A few weeks ago we chose to sign up for Netflix which has started us on a video binge. Surprisingly I've binged less than the Wife. Last week we added Amazon Prime to our video sources. The result has been a week of football (naturally) and Downton Abbey for the Wife.

My poison of choice has been Torchwood (Children of Men and Miracle Day specifically), a dribbling of Star Trek the animated series (I've read the novelizations but never actually watched the show - the only Star Trek incarnation I haven't actually seen), and lately episodes of Farscape (I never watched it live on SyFy - I think it was still SciFi back when it originally aired). My list of stuff to watch, mostly now defunct television series and documentaries, is longer than my arm which means viewing it all will never be completed.

Finding time to watch stuff has been a bit challenging for me since we only have one Roku box and the Wife, being off work until yesterday, had first dibs. My watching has been mostly limited to watching episodes on my tablet while on my bike trainer.

Adding to my, probably imagined, time crunch, I've chosen to start reading again. After a one year book reading hiatus I have started a new ebook which I will surely write about once I've finished.

On top of these choices I have my usual household cleaning and shopping chores, my preparation for RAGBRAI (which I am currently overlapping with my video watching but will take on a life of its own once it's warm enough to ride outside), my preparation for the Appalachian Trail, and my writing of Homer's Travels' posts.

To squeeze this all in, I will probably have to chose to sacrifice something. Namely mindless game playing ... i.e. Candy Crush. I'm sure I will cut back on Scrabble a bit as well but I refuse to give that up all together. You always need down time from your down time.